Try putting an ice-cube in your mouth. The insides of your mouth and tongue instantly turn numb. Hold it in still and you will feel pain. Now try sucking on peppermint. The mint itself is at room temperature…

People are notoriously bad at filtering choices - being faced with too many leads us to choose poorly.
Image sourced from www.shutterstock.comJune 17, 2014

We are faced with a myriad of choice in our lives - but an emerging body of work suggests the more choice we’re faced with, the more likely we’ll make a poor decision. The conundrum is called the “curse…

Neuroeconomics is a burgeoning field aimed at helping us understand decision-making.
Image sourced from www.shutterstock.comJune 17, 2014

Whether choosing a dinner, a car, a spouse or an investment, experts now know what part of the brain our likes and dislikes are encoded, how we represent alternatives, and even how we choose. This has…

The use of drugs to improve academic performance goes by a number of names – “academic doping”, “cosmetic neurology”, “neuroenhancement”. A recent survey suggested that Australian university students are…

Neuroscience is used to explain everything from sexual attraction to voting habits to why we buy particular products.
Flickr/mutsmuts January 25, 2013

In May last year, a new attraction called The Ascent opened for a brief season in Brooklyn, New York. Described as “part art installation, part adventure ride and part spiritual journey,” The Ascent consisted…

You might feel great after going for a jog, but is the “high” purely psychological?
TobyotterMarch 25, 2012

A new study is tapping into a phenomenon most of us have heard about and some of us might claim to have experienced at some point – “runner’s high”. In doing so, this study touches on something fundamentally…